1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a transportation apparatus.
2. Related Art
A scanner that is provided with an auto document feeder (ADF) can transport a plurality of documents placed on a document tray using the ADF and can read the plurality of documents consecutively.
A sheet transportation apparatus, which is provided with a length detection unit that detects whether or not a length in a transportation direction of a document sheet mounted on a document mounting section is equal to a predetermined standard length, a trailing end detection sensor that detects a trailing end of the document sheet being positioned on a downstream side of a separation and transportation section, and a first leading end detection sensor that detects a leading end of the document sheet being positioned in a predetermined position on the downstream side of the trailing end detection sensor in the transportation direction, has been known (refer to JP-A-2012-192988). In the sheet transportation apparatus, in a case where the result of the detection performed by the length detection unit indicates that the length is not equal to the standard length, timing of trailing end detection performed by the trailing end detection sensor is used as timing of rotation driving start of a pick-up roller, and in a case where the result of the detection indicates that the length is equal to the standard length, timing of leading end detection performed by the first leading end detection sensor is used as the timing of the rotation driving start.
In order to improve transportation efficiency of the ADF, a distance (hereinafter, inter-sheet distance) between paper sheets to be transported may be reduced. In order to reduce the inter-sheet distance, a dedicated sensor for acquiring timing of transportation start may be provided in the middle of a paper sheet transportation path so that transportation of a subsequent paper sheet is started at a time when an end portion of a paper sheet which is being transported is detected by the sensor. However, in this case, the dedicated sensor is needed to be provided, which results in an increase in product cost. Also in JP-A-2012-192988, a plurality of sensors of the trailing end detection sensor, the first leading end detection sensor, and the length detection unit, are needed to be provided, which results in an increase in product cost.